Yemen is experiencing an additional living shock in addition to the ongoing conflict in the country and the successive economic and humanitarian crises, with the return of thousands of expatriate workers from Saudi Arabia due to the measures implemented by the Kingdom against them, which many consider to be incomprehensible, and exacerbate the tragic situation in Yemen.

The Saudi authorities have launched intensive campaigns against workers, concentrated since the middle of last month in Jizan and Najran, and gradually expanding to include other Saudi regions. These campaigns aim to dispense with thousands of workers of several nationalities, including Yemenis, and replace them with workers of Asian nationalities, especially in universities and some educational and medical institutions and other professions.

Well-informed sources in the Yemeni government, who declined to be named, confirmed to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that there are moves by the Yemeni presidency and government to talk with Saudi officials in order to ease the measures taken in the Saudi labor market, which include not only Yemeni workers, but workers of various nationalities.

Negotiations between officials of the two countries

Officials’ moves seek to grant Yemeni workers exceptions in view of the country’s current situation, in light of the economic and humanitarian crises it is witnessing and the continuous decline in the national currency, according to the sources.

Under the directives of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the Yemeni Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, met with his Saudi counterpart, Faisal bin Farhan, to discuss the issues of Yemeni expatriates inside Saudi territory, and the need to work on solving their problems and overcoming the difficulties they face because of their importance as a vital economic tributary to Yemen. And their contribution to providing for their families inside the country in light of the current circumstances caused by the Houthi coup, as stated in a tweet on “Twitter” by the Yemeni Foreign Minister after his meeting with his Saudi counterpart.

Informed sources who spoke to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed indicated that the Saudi authorities, during the past month, set the percentage of Yemeni workers in all establishments and business sectors at about 25%, and then started field campaigns to implement the decision, which comes in the context of a series of decisions and procedures implemented by these authorities for the third year. Straight.

Dismissal without notice

The impact of the Saudi measures was harsh on Yemeni workers, who have been working for years in many sectors, as this is the only source of income to help them and their families to live a difficult and harsh life, in light of the deteriorating economic conditions in Yemen.

In this context, the newly returned Yemeni worker from Saudi Arabia, Ibrahim Muhammad, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that he returned to Yemen at the beginning of this month after a exile to work in the Saudi region of Hail, which lasted for twenty years after the authorities there refused to renew his residence, as they granted him a final exit visa for reasons related to Due to the huge financial accumulations that he was unable to pay from the fees and fees for renewing the residence permit as a result of the authorities in the Kingdom doubling them by a large percentage during the past two years.

For his part, the worker, Raed Al-Amari, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that he had fallen into the hands of the authorities working in the field of passports in the Kingdom, who dismissed him on the pretext that the foreign workers specified in the field in which he works as an electrical engineer exceeded the percentage specified by law, as these procedures are implemented very strictly, according to him. And without giving any deadline or seeking any justification for processing the residency according to the standards of labor laws in Saudi Arabia.

Yemeni expatriates working in the southern regions of the Kingdom in Jizan, Najran and Asir, including doctors and academics, confirmed that they had received notices from the Saudi authorities to terminate their contract without prior notice, and give Saudi business owners a deadline of about 4 months to implement the percentages specified by the Saudi Ministry of Labor for foreign workers in the Kingdom. .

In this context, the economic researcher, Jamal Al-Adini, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the Saudi campaigns are illogical in targeting a specific group of workers in conjunction with the dismissal process without giving any reasons related to settlement or Saudization of professions, or compensating them for the damages and losses that will inflict them according to the laws Work followed.

Living and financial pressures

The pace of the return of Yemeni expatriate workers in Saudi Arabia to Yemen has increased during the recent period, as governorates such as Hadramout in southeastern Yemen and Taiz in the southwest of the country have received a large number of returnees since last month, in light of the warnings of economists of the repercussions of the Saudi plan in light of the conditions of the war that it is suffering from. Including Yemen, the scarcity of job opportunities and the collapse in the value of the Yemeni riyal, as well as what the return of expatriates and their escorts with this density to Yemen may pose to increase the pressures of demand for basic social services in the education, health and water sectors, which are already facing the specter of collapse in most regions of the country.

It is likely that Yemen will suffer from a decrease in the proceeds of remittances, with measures to reduce employment opportunities for Yemeni workers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, which will affect families that depend on these remittances, not to mention the exacerbation of the financial crisis, which will weaken the external position of Yemen, which will increase From pressure on the exchange rate with an impact on the prices of imported goods.

In this context, the economic expert and former Deputy Minister of Planning and International Cooperation in Yemen, Mutahar Al-Abbasi, believes that the Yemeni economy will be greatly affected by the vibration of the rest of its scarce resources with the loss of the rest of its main resources on which it depends, as remittances from expatriates remained During the years of war in Yemen about six years ago, it represented the sustainable source of foreign currency, whether in the form of transfers in Saudi riyals, dollars or any other currency.

Al-Abbasi links this resource, which tried to hold out during the last period, with the battle to preserve the purchasing power of the Yemeni riyal, with its impact extending to all Yemeni regions and governorates, regardless of the measures taken by the Central Bank of Yemen, as the remittances of expatriates are an economically invisible resource, but Key to the influx of hard currency, monetary reserves, trade balance, market stability, and the alleviation of human suffering.

In light of the continued deterioration of the local currency, the Yemeni President, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, directed, last Monday, the Central Bank under the (internationally recognized) government in the interim capital, Aden, the necessity of managing the control of the domestic and foreign money supply, controlling and managing the market, and not leaving monetary policy tools and tools The market is in the hands of money changers, speculators and the Houthi group.

The directives of the Yemeni president, which he issued during a meeting with the leadership of the Central Bank in the presence of Prime Minister Maeen Abdul Malik, came the day after the riyal resumed its collapse and recorded 1010 riyals against the dollar, after days of remarkable improvement during the past week.

Reduce the collapse of purchasing power

The World Bank estimates the volume of Yemeni expatriate remittances at about $4 billion annually, while a recent report issued by the Economic Studies and Forecasting Sector at the Yemeni Ministry of Planning estimated it at $431 million per month during 2019, stressing, according to data and information, the importance of Yemeni expatriate remittances in abroad, which had a major role during the first three years of the war in limiting exchange rate changes and limiting the collapse of the purchasing value of the Yemeni riyal.

This comes despite the widespread harassment faced by expatriate workers, especially in Saudi Arabia, which hosts the largest number of expatriates abroad and is linked by a wide land border with Yemen, which has been in a state of continuous war since 2015 and has caused the largest humanitarian crisis in the world for a country already afflicted by unemployment and chronic poverty. According to the report of the Economic Studies and Forecasting Sector of the Yemeni Ministry of Planning.

Since 2015, the foreign reserves of foreign exchange in Yemen have gradually eroded, oil and gas exports have faltered, and the central bank has abandoned financing the import of basic commodities and fuel in stages, while expatriate remittances have maintained their value, according to the Ministry of Planning report at $3.3 billion in 2015, and slightly increased to 3.7 Billions of dollars in 2016, and it was estimated at about 3.4 billion dollars in 2017, and 3.6 billion dollars in 2018.

Expatriate remittances were the last resort that importers crowded into the exchange market during the war years, avoiding the economic and humanitarian situation in the country from the most dangerous scenarios that we have seen in the past months of a deterioration of the national currency against foreign currencies.

Official economic reports also show that the ratio of expatriates’ remittances to the gross domestic product is one of the most important indicators to infer the contribution of remittances to the Yemeni economy, as remittances enable the expatriate to cover the consumption expenditures of his family and implement small and medium economic projects, often through these remittances.

revitalization of the economy

The impact of remittances does not stop at the person or the family receiving them directly, but rather their effects extend to the rest of the economy and society through the multiplier effect as they contribute to an increase in aggregate demand, and thus revitalize the economy to produce more goods and services and generate employment and income opportunities, and then directly and indirectly alleviate poverty Live.

In addition to the dependence of more than 35% of Yemeni families on remittances from expatriates, the contribution of these remittances to the Yemeni economy significantly increased during the war period before the outbreak of the Corona virus, as it rose, according to official data, from 9.9% in 2014 to about 25% in 2018. .

This reflects the importance of remittances as a source of income and the stabilization of living conditions for the population in Yemen, and the role they play in supporting expatriate families’ access to basic social services, reducing food insecurity and alleviating poverty, according to observers to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.